Short Analysis 1 “Miss McEnders” by Kate Chopin
In the story “MISS McEnders” by Kate Chopin Miss Georgie McEnders plans on reading “a paper upon “The Dignity of Labor.”” In the story she decides to go to talk to Mademoiselle Salambre (the woman who makes her lingerie) because she likes to know the people who work for her (176). Through Georgie’s actions prior and during the meeting with Mademoiselle Salambre, Chopin exposes how Miss McEnders is not fit to read the paper on “The Dignity of Labor” because the wealth and life style that Georgie possesses has caused her to have disconnect from the real world due to her wealth, and life style.
Georgie is so wealthy that she has a disconnect form the real world that causes her not to see the difference between taste and morality in respect to riding herself of everything that suggests she’s wealthy before she gives her speech (175). Georgie acknowledges that it will be an “amount of good taste” to take off her jewelry before she speaks. However, she believes that she is doing the morally right thing by taking off her jewelry for her talk with the other club members. She fails to see that dressing apriority to talk on an issue with other people in her same class isn’t a morality issue because she isn’t talking to the labors. Thus exposing how her wealth disconnects her from understanding morals in the real world.
Georgie’s wealth and life style has prevented her from facing any hardship, and caused her to be too naive to understand the working class problems in the real world. Georgie is “almost too white-souled” to be a person meaning she sees the world as a perfect place. When Georgie meet with Salambre she couldn’t understand why Salambre would have to lie about her child to get a job (177). Georgie only saw that Salambre was lying and didn’t share her own values instead of seeing that Salambre would have to lie to stay alive and feed her kid because she has never been exposed to a problem like that in her life.
Georgie’s wealth and life style kept her from seeing the difference between a service and a commodity because she has only been exposed to service workers in her home like James and not commodity workers in the real world. She is afraid that any one she hires personal life will reflect upon her own morals and principles, and that she must punish anyone that works for her if they do not share the same values. Thus, exposing her misunderstanding of a commodity economy. For example When Georgie meet with Salambre and found out she had a child out of wedlock she saw it fit to punish Salambre by firing her because she is “living in sin” and doesn’t regret it because it helps her (177-178). Her desire to punish a commodity worker for something that has no reflect on her shows how Georgie can’t see the difference between a worker like her servant James and the women who makes her lingerie (176-178).
Reflective Tag: This paper taught me how classes clash in the United States. It showed how a weal off person can not relate to someone who makes less money. Another thing I learned form this paper is that your lifestyle can blind you from the lifestyle of others.
Works Cited
Chopin, Kate, and Pamela Knights. The Awakening and Other Stories. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.